South African police to face charges over horrific death

Updated
March 02, 2013 09:18:00

Eight South African police officers are facing murder charges after the death of a Mozambican man who was dragged behind a police van. An investigation was launched after footage emerged showing the man being hauled through the streets with his hands cuffed to the vehicle.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Eight South African police officers are facing murder charges after the death of a Mozambican man who was dragged behind a police van.

An investigation was launched after footage emerged showing the man being hauled through the streets with his hands cuffed to the vehicle.

President Jacob Zuma has called the actions of the police "horrific" and "unacceptable".

Our Africa Correspondent Ginny Stein says the incident only came to light because bystanders videoed it on their mobile phones.

GINNY STEIN: This was something that there were enough people around - there was more than one person who actually filmed this.

Police said that they pulled over someone that they had a problem with this taxi driver about where he had parked and how he had parked, and within moments it seems an altercation began.

They tried to arrest him; they beat him; they threw him to the ground.

According to the mobile phone footage that was seen, he was then tied to the back of a paddy wagon and dragged through the streets. It was at least 500 metres that he was dragged.

Now that's where the mobile phone video ended, and then two hours later, in police custody, we got the news that he was dead.

So he was bashed there on the scene, he was dragged - we don't know what took place in the cells, but we do know that eight police officers have been charged with murder now.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: What else do we know about this victim, Ginny?

As you say, he was 27 years old; he was from Mozambique, wasn't he?

GINNY STEIN: Yes. He came with his family when he was 10 years old. South Africa has long been a drawcard for workers to come, and his father was a miner who worked in the mines in South Africa.

South Africa is a land of migrant labour, and so that's how he ended up in South Africa, and he'd been here for 17 years.

So his story, working as a taxi driver, is not uncommon for people who come to work in South Africa.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Is it the case that workers like this are sometimes treated in a shoddy manner by police?

GINNY STEIN: Look, there is great xenophobia here in South Africa.

If you're from elsewhere, you may get worse treatment from the police - it's long been seen.

Zimbabweans and Mozambique often put in complaints about the way that they're treated, and these are people who are not officially here or perhaps he was, but they are often victims of police brutality in every which way.

They're picked on in the workplace, singled out for undue attention in the street. Just not being from the same place, same accents, same whatever, can cause you to be singled out.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: So what happens now, Ginny? Police, as you say, have been arrested. Presumably, they've been charged and will appear in court sometime next week?

GINNY STEIN: Well, it's interesting - the head of the national police commissioner came out and said initially that the eight officers had been suspended.

There was an outcry here about this, saying, "What?! Only suspended? Why aren't they arrested?", and within a matter of hours, that position had gone from being suspended to being charged with murder.

The internal division - the watchdog of the police, as such - taking that action. Now, South African police, they're very much in the spotlight here at the moment.

The Marikana mine massacre last year, in which 34 miners were shot down by police - there's been a commission of inquiry underway here for the past few weeks overshadowed, of course, by the trial of Oscar Pistorius.

But this is a case of police, their action being in the limelight and not looking good.